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TORONTO—Cheryl Hines was already a pro at handling animals going into the filming of Nine Lives, out Friday.

The Curb Your Enthusiasm star plays the ex-wife to Kevin Spacey’s character Tom, who winds up trapped inside the body of a cat he buys for his daughter (Malina Weissman). Co-stars include Christopher Walken as a mysterious pet-shop owner, Jennifer Garner as Tom’s current wife, and Toronto native Robbie Amell as his son.

Hines felt right at home with the star feline: growing up in Florida, her family had as many as 17 outdoor cats at a time in their suburban backyard playhouse.

“There were times when we would have to put ribbons around the kittens’ necks and then put them in a wagon and take them around the neighbourhood to try to get rid of the kittens,” she says.

“Really, looking back on it, the neighbours couldn’t have loved it.”

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These days, Hines doesn’t have cats but she does have two dogs (including a puppy), an emu and five tortoises.

She says her daughter and her husband, environmental activist and author Robert Kennedy Jr., are huge animal lovers.

The emu lives outdoors.

“Although our bigger dog knows how to open the back door,” says Hines. “So he opens the sliding-glass door and then the emu likes to come inside.

“It’s just a circus at my house.”

As for the blue-eyed furball in Nine Lives, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld of the Men in Black films, Hines reveals there were actually a few of them.

“One of them . . . his fur wasn’t quite as full as the other ones, so they had a little fur collar that they would put on him. So he had to wear a weave,” she says with a laugh.

Hines says she was attracted to the project because she’s a huge fan of Sonnenfeld’s work.

She was also pleased to take on a project she can enjoy with her 12-year-old daughter.

“When she saw this film, she said, ‘Why am I not playing your daughter?’” says Hines. “I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were an actress.’ She said, ‘I could do that, I could play that part.’

“I said, ‘I think it’s slightly more complicated than you think it is.’”

“She hasn’t really been that excited about some of my past projects,” adds Hines. “She’s not a huge Curb Your Enthusiasm fan but she did like Suburgatory.”

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